Charles S. Newmark

Survey of professional education in ethics in clinical psychology intership programs

Attempted to assess the extent to which clinical psychology internship programs offer professional education in ethical standards. While almost 80% of the programs offer such training, less than half of these provide a formal, systematic, and comprehensive learning experience. Many of the programs only provide a limited exposure to ethical standards that occurs on an informal basis as issues emerge in supervision. All but two of the programs that do not offer training in ethical standards reported that this was the primary responsibility of the clinical psychology graduate school program. The immediate implementation of formal training in ethical standards is needed urgently.

Stability of state and trait anxiety.

The stability of state and trait anxiety in a normal college population was assessed on four separate occasions over a 10-mo. period. The results indicate the transitory nature of state anxiety while simultaneously emphasizing the stability of trait anxiety.

Diagnosis of Schizophrenia: Pathognomonic Signs or Symptom Clusters

LTHOUGH A it has long been a focus for professional concern, psychiatric diagnosis remains the greatest impediment to investigative work in schizophrenia. Feighner et al.’ l discussed the difficulties involved in arriving at a research definition of schizophrenia, while the unreliability of the psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenics has been documented thoroughly.8*‘7 DS M-II,2 revised to alleviate some of the vagueness and ambiguity of DSM-I,’ has led to even more controversy regarding objective criteria for the diagnosis of schizophrenia.32 The inadequacies of DSM-II, especially with regard to its lack of specificity in the definition of terms used to define schizophrenia and its inadequacy as a nomenclature, have been discussed extensively.1s.17 Many investigators beginning with Kraepelin”’ have attempted to establish pathognomonic criteria that brought together patients with varied phenomenology under the same diagnostic class. For example, Bleuler5 described four general primary symptoms of schizophrenia which included loose associations, flat affect, autism and ambivalence as well as secondary symptoms called ego functions. However, this system has been considered inadequate since it uses imprecise terminology, mixes theoretical concepts with observations and because such symptoms also are prevalent to some degree in other physical and psychiatric disorders.32 While initially considered to have some basic validity and explanatory power, Bleuler’s concepts now receive little support.12 The most impressive effort to date in describing pathognomonic symptoms of schizophrenia has been described by Schneider. 27 This phenomenologic system includes 11 first rank order symptoms (FRS) which include three forms of auditory hallucinations, delusions, somatic passivity, thought insertion, thought withdrawal, thought broadcasting, and affect impulses or motor activity experienced as imposed and controlled from the outside. A detailed explanation of each symptom can be found elsewhere. g These FRSs are regarded as pathognomonic of schizophrenia when one is present in the absence of somatic illness. While the FRSs were chosen pragmatically according to their ease of identification, with no relation to theory, no empirical tests of the predictive validity of these concepts were conducted until recently. Mellor2’ found that 72% of 166 newly admitted schizophrenics demonstrated

Utility of three abbreviated MMPIs with psychiatric outpatients.

Evidence substantiating the need for an abbreviated form of the MMPI is presented. An investigation is conducted to assess the comparative utility of three recently developed abbreviated MMPIs with psychiatric outpatients. The similarity of the group profiles within each sex as well as the highly significant scale correlations suggest that each of the three abbreviated MMPIs corresponds fairly accurately to the standard form for these subjects as a group. However, investigations of the profile pairs for individual subjects consistently found that the Faschingbauer abbreviated MMPI permitted the most accurate conclusions concerning the validity, high points, and general elevation of the corresponding standard MMPI. Numerous deficiencies were evident when using either the Midi-Mult or Hugo abbreviated MMPI especially with regard to classification analysis concerning validity.

An Abbreviated MMPI for use with College Students.

The ability of Faschingbauers shorter form to predict standard MMPI scores in a college population was investigated. Results showed close statistical correspondence, high comparability in identifying valid and invalid profiles as well as high correspondence with respect to high-point codes and general profile elevations.

The Effects of Personality Tests on State and Trait Anxiety

Summary 52 college student volunteers received the MMPI, Rorschach, TAT, and Sentence Completion Test in counterbalanced order with a test-retest interval of approximately 24 hours. State and trait anxiety measures were assessed immediately prior to and immediately following each test administration. Results indicated that state anxiety measures increased significantly following administration of the more ambiguous, unstructured test stimuli, namely the Rorschach and TAT. In contrast, the more structured, direct assessment methods, namely the MMPI and Sentence Completion Test, did not induce any significant changes in state anxiety. In all cases, trait anxiety measures remained relatively stable.

Comparison of the Predictive Validity of Two Measures of Psychotherapy Prognosis

Summary A comparison of the predictive validity of the Rorschach PRS and Barrons Es Scale was conducted with neurotic Ss receiving either behavior modification or rational-emotive psychotherapy. The results help to establish the efficacy of the PRS by empirically demonstrating efficient prediction for both groups when other relevant demographic and nontest variables have been controlled. In contrast, the Es Scale does not appear to be related to psychotherapy prognosis nor does it tap the same personality variables as the PRS.

Utility of MMPI indices of schizophrenia with adolescents

Assessed the utility of empirically derived MMPI criteria for the diagnosis of schizophrenia with a sample of hospitalized adolescent patients (N = 89). The criterion diagnosis was established through the use of a standardized structured interview and a diagnostic system for schizophrenia based on the use of discriminant function analysis. Results were quite disappointing because only 23% of the sample obtained an MMPI profile that fit the above criteria.

Age and MMPI indices of schizophrenia

Assessed the generalizability of empirically derived MMPI criteria for the diagnosis of schizophrenia with an older sample of hospitalized patients (N = 65). The criterion diagnosis was established through the use of a standarized structured interview and a diagnostic system for schizophrenia based on the use of discriminant function analysis. Results were quite disappointing because only 22% of the sample obtained an MMPI profile that fit the above criteria.

Predictive validity of the Rorschach Prognostic Rating Scale with schizophrenic patients.

The prognostic validity of the Rorschach Rating Scale was assessed with schizophrenic patients. Through the use of a standardized standardized structured interview and a diagnostic system for schizophrenia based on the use of discriminant function analysis with nonpathognomonic symptom combinations, a reliable an valid system was used to establish the criterion diagnosis. Outcome criteria used included a variety of measures of schizophrenic thought disorder. The results help to establish the practical utility of the PRS empirically with schizophrenic patients by demonstrating efficient prediction when other relevant demographic and nontest variables have been controlled. Furthermore, the concept of ego strength from which the PRS was developed does not appear to be too global a characteristic when the area for change is specifically delineated.